Marketing winners and losers of the week

This week’s marketing winners, losers and newsmakers. 40 under 40 entries are open The final deadline for nominations is Aug. 2 Enter here Winners Deadpool & Wolverine: A savior of summer movies, the surly superhero flick is raking it in at the box office following its debut last week. In its first five days of showtimes, the Disney film surpassed $545.8 million globally in ticket sales, a record for an R-rated movie. According to Variety, “Deadpool & Wolverine,” which stars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman in the titular roles, is on track to be the second R-rated film in history to hit $1 billion in global sales (after “Joker”). Warning to parents—the movie has more than 100 F-bombs. Pommel horse guy: Stephen Nedoroscik captured viewers’ hearts at the Olympic Games this week with a gymnastics routine that quickly went viral and helped earn the U.S. men’s team a bronze medal, its first in 16 years. Called the “Clark Kent of pommel horse,” the bespectacled Nedoroscik—who removes his glasses for his super moves—was the subject of countless memes and affectionate posts on social media. Obsessed with this guy on the US men's gymnastics team who's only job is pommel horse, so he just sits there until he's activated like a sleeper agent, whips off his glasses like Clark Kent and does a pommel horse routine that helps deliver the team its first medal in 16 years. pic.twitter.com/0D1ZqJjFa1— Megan 📚 (@MegWritesBooks) July 29, 2024 Pommel horse GUY to pommel horse MAN 👓 @GymnastSteve #ParisOlympics pic.twitter.com/exYIcE5uIO— Peacock (@peacock) July 29, 2024 Brands are already showing interest. Yesterday, eyewear brand Eyebobs announced it has renamed a pair of its frames The Stephen, with a giveaway planned for this Saturday. View this post on Instagram A post shared by eyebobs eyewear (@eyebobs) Other brands are likely to follow. Perhaps Spin Master-owned Rubik’s Cube, a toy Nedoroscik can solve in well under a minute, might consider a collab? MY HEART pic.twitter.com/zh6KCTpwtk— as tall as a 🥥🌴 (@talltbh) July 31, 2024 In other Olympic milestones, NBCUniversal announced on Tuesday that it hit record Olympic ad revenue with the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games, exceeding the $1.2 billion in ad revenue from 2016 and $1.25 billion in ad revenue from 2020. Brooks Running: The shoe brand logged a 15% increase in revenue for its second quarter, a record for the Seattle-based sneaker maker. Brooks expects more double-digit growth this year as it debuts 10 new and updated styles between now and December. The sales rise comes as competitor Nike continues to struggle. Read more: Why Brooks Running is updating its tagline Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs Losers Army: The U.S. Army’s $11 million marketing deal with startup football league UFL and its co-owner Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson did not go as planned. The effort, which was supposed to involve social media posts from Johnson, “didn’t lead to a single new Army recruit and may possibly have had a negative impact on finding new enlistments,” Military.com reported this week, citing internal documents. The publication stated that Johnson only made two of the five social media posts called for in the deal. The report also criticized the Army’s broader marketing approach, noting that “much of its efforts are still geared toward funneling money into cable TV-style ads and marketing deals with other traditional television broadcasts, such as sports, even as Gen Z’s media diet has left most of those old-school mediums behind.” Omnicom Group’s DDB won the lucrative Army account in 2018. It is unclear if the agency was involved in the UFL partnership. A DDB spokeswoman did not immediately return an email for comment. Military.com reported that the UFL deal was “pushed through directly by Gen. Randy George, the Army chief of staff.” Google: The tech giant has pulled its much-criticized commercial for its Gemini AI platform from its Olympics TV buy. The “Dear Sydney” spot, created internally, portrays a dad using the tool to help his daughter write a letter to an Olympian she idolizes. Critics bashed that concept as tone-deaf, saying it sends the message of not letting children express their own feelings. Google initially defended the spot—which got airtime during the first few days of NBC’s Olympics coverage—telling Ad Age it depicts the AI tool as helpful to create an “early draft for someone looking for ideas.” Read more: Google pauses Olympics AI ad buy after backlash If you’re a Washington Post subscriber, click the link for Alexandra Petri’s glorious rant on Google’s Gemini AI ad, about a child using AI to write a fan letter (as a good thing). She is spectacularly right, and describes actual writing perfectly, here.https://t.co/mrtj1MwzBy pic.twitter.com/Kv1fJIaypn— T.J. Stiles (@TJStiles_Author) July 31, 2024 CarShield: The brand, which markets subscription-based vehicle service contracts intended to cover car repairs, was punished this week by the Federal Trade Commission over charges of deceptive and misleading advertising and telemarketing. “Many purchasers found that many repairs were not ‘covered,’ despite making payments of up to $120 per month,” stated the FTC, which reached a $10 million settlement with CarShield. The commission alleged that celebrity endorsers—which have included Ice-T and ESPN’s Chris Berman—were portrayed as real customers when in fact they were not. Quote of the week “I am shocked, I am upset, and I am disappointed in the lack of sensitivity that went into this campaign.” —Model Bella Hadid in an Instagram apology post about the recent Adidas campaign that memorialized the 1972 Munich Olympics, during which Israeli athletes were murdered by terrorists. 40 under 40 entries are open The final deadline for nominations is Aug. 2 Enter here Social post of the week That’s a lot of Corgis. Just saying… pic.twitter.com/3wVUZy6XrE— Jenny 🇺🇸 (@JenJJams) July 31, 2024 Number of the week $8.88: The price of a Super 8 by Wyndham room reservation on Aug. 8, a throwback to celebrate the brand’s 50th anniversary. On the move Campbell named Jill Pratt as senior VP and chief marketing officer of its meals and beverages division. She had been CMO at Heatonist. Garage Beer hired Kevin George as CMO. He had been advising the firm through his East Cape Partners. He previously held CMO jobs at Harvest Health and Recreation and Beam Suntory. Also read: Jason and Travis Kelce join Garage Beer as investors Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. named Mamatha Chamarthi senior VP and chief digital officer. She had been chief software business growth officer at Stellantis. In addition, the company named Will Roland senior VP and CMO. He was senior VP, media, consumers, analytics and digital, at Stellantis North America. VidaCorp hired Meridith Rojas as CMO, North America. She had been chief brand officer at Captiv8. Visit Seattle appointed Stephanie Byington senior VP and CMO. She was senior director of brand marketing at Slalom. Canned wine brand Archer Roose hired Conley Downing as CMO. She was previously head of marketing at Pronghorn.co, an accelerator program backed by Diageo that invests in Black-owned spririts. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs

Marketing winners and losers of the week

Featured Stories